


I Need A Hero

by bracari, MrMich



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Boku no Hero Academia Fusion, M/M, Unreliable Narrator, or rather the kind of people who shove their way into your life and aggressively love you, supportive friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-06
Updated: 2017-07-06
Packaged: 2018-11-28 06:36:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11412309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bracari/pseuds/bracari, https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrMich/pseuds/MrMich
Summary: When Yuuri was a kid, all he ever wanted was to be a hero; but his Quirk wasn’t good enough for hero work, and even though he had friends and family encouraging him, he still gave up on his dream.Until one day, when the Iron Prince, the world’s number one pro hero, sees Yuuri save someone’s life and immediately drags him into the world of heroes - and unfortunately for Yuuri, Victor doesn’t take ‘no’ for an answer.





	I Need A Hero

**Author's Note:**

> My piece for the Victuuri Reverse Bang! I worked with [malchikelf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/malchikelf/pseuds/malchikelf) (bracari-iris on [tumblr](https://bracari-iris.tumblr.com)), who is a lovely artist and an even lovelier person! 
> 
> (You don't have to know anything about Boku no Hero Academia, except that Quirks are superpowers)

  

 

A sudden crash and the sound of breaking glass rang through the store. Yuuri halfheartedly looked up from the packet of spices he was turning over in his hands, figuring that someone had knocked something off of the crowded shelves and that it was nothing to be concerned about. Mistakes happened all the time, after all.

But he was wrong.

Instead of a sheepish customer holding the remnants of a glass jar, Yuuri saw an outlandishly dressed young man looming over the store owner, Mr. Sawada.

Mr. Sawada was clawing at his neck, his mouth opened in a way that suggested that he would be gasping for air if he had any breath in his lungs at all.

Yuuri jolted forward, trying to focus on Mr. Sawada’s heartbeat, cursing himself for not training his Quirk to be stronger, better. It was hard. He hadn’t used his Quirk in so long, and all the other heartbeats were overpowering. Everyone was in a panic, in shock, or frozen to where they stood.

Finally, Yuuri latched onto the sound of Mr. Sawada’s heart. It was faint – dangerously so, and he started pushing his way through anyone between him and Mr. Sawada. He couldn’t let the kind old man die. He had to do something.

He was so close to reaching Mr. Sawada - he didn’t have a plan. What would he do? What could he do? - when the shop door was blown off it’s hinges, startling Yuuri into letting go of his tenuous grasp on Mr. Sawada’s heartbeat. Standing in the gaping doorway was the Iron Prince, the man said to be the most successful hero in history.

Yuuri almost sobbed in relief as the Iron Prince charged the villain, throwing him off to the side by the metal fixtures in his ridiculous costume and leaving a clear path to Mr. Sawada. Yuuri shoved roughly through the rest of the people in his way, muttering apologies as an afterthought. Finally, finally, he reached Mr. Sawada’s side.

He distantly noted the Iron Prince grappling with the villain not even fifteen feet away, the clang of wire racks and metal detritus ringing out before he shut everything out. He needed all his focus to be on Mr. Sawada.

He kneeled beside Mr. Sawada and held his breath, focusing his Quirk. The heartbeats surrounding him were deafening, but at this moment only one mattered. He sorted through them until he was able to refocus on Mr. Sawada’s.

It was so quiet, and so slow.

He panicked. He could tell by the sound of Mr. Sawada’s heart that the paramedics wouldn’t get there in time. Not unless he did something.

He took a couple of deep breaths to shut out his anxiety. Well, as much as he could anyway. It helped that the clanging sound of metal from the Iron Prince’s fight with the villain came to an abrupt halt as the Iron Prince fully subdued the villain, and the sounds of the environment melted away much more easily with the absence of jarring crashes.

Yuuri reached out for Mr. Sawada’s pulse and synchronized their heartbeats. Once he could no longer distinguish his heart from Mr. Sawada’s, he visualized his own heartbeat, and slowed it down even more. It jumped the two hearts out of synchronicity, speeding up Mr. Sawada’s heartbeat at the same rate Yuuri was slowing his own down. An equal and opposite reaction.

 

  

 

He kept it up until he could hear the wailing sirens of an ambulance growing nearer, intertwining with the sirens of the police cars that had only just skidded up to the store. He released it carefully and slowly, ensuring that Mr. Sawada’s heart had time to adjust to working under its own power. By the time Yuuri had pulled away completely, the paramedics had set their stretcher down beside Mr. Sawada and were preparing to load him onto it. Yuuri stood up quickly, trying to get out of their way, and immediately regretted it.

He swayed backwards, the combination of messing with his own heartbeat and kneeling for a few minutes giving him a headrush. His vision faded black, and although he couldn’t see anything, he was incredibly dizzy.

He lost his balance and stumbled back a few steps, colliding with someone. He apologized and tried to move away, but a strong arm locked around his shoulders and held him steady for a few seconds until his vision cleared.

As the last of the black faded from Yuuri’s vision, he saw the ambulance carrying Mr. Sawada speed off, and he sighed in relief, thankful that Mr. Sawada could get professional help.

Yuuri realized that he was still leaning into someone’s grip, and turned around to thank whoever had helped him when he stopped short, the words lodging in his throat as he realized that it was the Iron Prince that had his arms wrapped around Yuuri.

He squeaked, his face burning, and he knew that he had to be bright red by now because oh my god that was the Iron Prince!

Yuuri wondered if it was too late to actually pass out.

 

 

Yuuri could remember the day he had decided to be a hero.

Ever since he had been little, he'd always liked helping others, and despite his rather useless Quirk, those that he helped always told him that he would become a great hero someday.

He had always brushed those comments off as kind insincerities. After all, how could he ever become a hero? His Quirk only let him detect and alter others’ heartbeats, and whatever he did to someone else's heartbeat, the opposite would always happen to his own. It wasn’t nearly as cool or useful as having control over fire, or being super strong, or really fast.

But as time went on and people around him continued to encourage him to apply for hero school, he decided to go for it. After all, there were so many different skillsets that the pro heroes had, and they were all useful in their own ways.

All these things made him willing to try applying to hero school, but the one thing that actually made him want to go more than anything was Victor Nikiforov.

At the time, Victor had still been a student at UA; the golden boy whose debut as a hero everyone was eagerly anticipating. Hero agencies in Japan had been courting him from the second he transferred into UA High, and there was even a permanent offer for a position in Yakov Feltsman’s hero agency in Russia.

In short, everyone was expecting great things from Victor. However, he was still a student without a hero license, so when he encountered a villain attacking people with no pro heroes in sight and he stepped in, the law required he be punished heavily for it and he was expelled from UA.

The public was outraged of course. No one thought that he should have been punished for saving lives, and there was so much public backlash that the expulsion was rescinded shortly thereafter.

Victor graduated that year and got his hero license. People eventually moved on with their lives, but for Yuuri, that was the start of everything.

The then thirteen-year old Yuuri had been amazed by Victor’s complete selflessness. Not only had he put himself in danger, but he also risked everything he had going for him. His future could have been demolished, but Victor decided to act anyways, regardless of the consequences he knew he would have to face.

For Yuuri, that thought was inspiring. Here was a hero that was undeniably there for the people, to save and protect them, no matter who they were. Someone that would fight for the sake of the people. Not for the money, fame, or the accomplishments that being a hero brought.

And that, to Yuuri, meant everything.

 

 

While Yuuri didn’t actually faint, it was a close call. He wondered if it would have been easier on him if had fainted, as he would readily admit that being in close quarters with his favorite hero wouldn’t be the best for his health or mental state on a good day, much less one where so many stressful things happened in quick succession. Plus, he was pretty sure it wasn’t a good thing when his heartbeat, still recovering from his Quirk, went from unhealthily slow to pounding like a jackhammer thanks to his hero crush.

Yuuri, who felt dead on his feet, was glad that he had long passed the point of exhaustion that led him to babble embarrassing things. He would never live it down if he fanboyed in front of the Iron Prince when he was too tired to filter what he was thinking. As it was, he mustered up enough energy to thank the Iron Prince and extract himself from his steadying grip before stumbling home to pass out. (People kept stopping him to ask him if he was alright, and the trip home took twice as long as it otherwise would have.)

As soon as he walked through the front door of the small inn his family kept, Yu-topia Katsuki, he muttered a short greeting to his family and made his way to his room. He fell onto his bed and sighed in relief. He hadn’t felt this exhausted from using his Quirk since it had first developed when he was four, and while he did have to consider the other stresses of the day, he knew himself well enough to know that those stresses didn’t make nearly as much of an impact as the strain of using his Quirk.

It was a little shocking to him. He had used his Quirk very rarely since he dropped out of UA as a third year, but he didn’t think that his control over his Quirk would degenerate nearly as much as it did.

Yuuri’s last thoughts before drifting off to sleep were of his old dreams of being a hero like the Iron Prince.

 

 

After the attack at the grocery store, the Iron Prince seemed to be everywhere Yuuri was. He was in his civilian clothes, but with that silver hair and those bright blue eyes, it was unmistakably him. It didn’t matter where Yuuri was - the grocery store (Mr. Sawada had recovered admirably well and was able to run the store again, though this time with the addition of hired security guards), the library, or even if he was just on a walk - Yuuri could always spot that silver hair out of the corner of his eye. He wasn’t really sure how to deal with his favorite hero popping in and out of his life, and especially wasn’t sure if he should be glad that the Iron Prince never tried to talk to him or be worried that he had acquired a stalker.

He decided to just ignore it for the time being, and continued his life as usual, ignoring the accented japanese or the flash of silver that always caught his attention. Better to play dumb than suffer public humiliation at his own hands. He knew that if he ever actually acknowledged the Iron Prince’s presence in his life, he’d turn into a gibbering, embarrassing mess, and he was quite content to deny everything.

Of course, with the kind of luck that Yuuri had, he should have known that this tentative balance wouldn’t hold.

 

 

It was a nice day out. The weather was pleasant; neither too hot nor too cold, and the afternoon sun was a warming presence on Yuuri’s shoulders. He had decided to go for a walk, feeling too cooped up inside and a little restless, and he wandered in and out of the shade of the trees planted by the edge of the park he was walking past.

He wasn’t paying much attention to his surroundings, instead basking in the peace that the nice weather had brought. Therefore, he was extremely surprised when he crashed into a wall and ended up sprawled on the ground. A warm, breathing wall.

He scrambled upright, apologies already rolling off of his tongue when he looked up and actually looked at who he had just bumped into, at which point his brain ceased to function and he forgot how to speak at all. His jaw clicked shut and his eyes widened in horror. Because of course he had to literally throw himself at the Iron Prince.

The Iron Prince smiled. “You’re the one that saved the shopkeeper a few days ago, right?” He then frowned slightly, but his eyes were dancing. “I wanted to ask you something before, but every time I saw you, something would come up!” The smile came back, even brighter than before, and Yuuri had to squash the urge to shield his eyes. “I’m glad that I can finally talk with you now!” he gasped. “Where are my manners? I’m Victor Nikiforov. It’s nice to meet you!”

Yuuri barely kept himself from blurting out that he knew exactly who he was. He desperately hoped he’d be able to come out of this conversation with his dignity intact (although he knew how unlikely that was).

It was only the manners that had been drilled into him when he was a kid that had him introducing himself in kind, instead of passing out or telling the man every fact that Yuuri knew about him. “Uh, I’m Yuuri Katsuki. Nice to meet you.”

“Now that we have introductions out of the way, I have something important to ask you!” Victor beamed at Yuuri.

Yuuri squinted at him, then subtly reached over to his own wrist and pinched hard. He stifled a yelp (a little unsuccessfully, given that look that the Iron Pri- Victor gave him) and realized that it was indeed reality. Victor was still looking at him expectantly, and Yuuri came to the conclusion that Victor was waiting for him to say something.

“O-oh. What did you want to, uh, ask me?” His voice lilted up at the end, showing his incredulity that the Iron Prince wanted to talk to him, a UA dropout with mediocre abilities.

Victor grinned again (and Yuuri could see why all the toothpaste companies wanted him in their ads - who even had teeth that perfect? apparently Victor Nikiforov, that’s who) and said, “I want you to be my sidekick, Yuuri!”

Yuuri, who was still contemplating the mystery of the Iron Prince’s perfect teeth, was caught completely off guard and surreptitiously pinched himself again. Somehow, he did not drift off to sleep within the last few minutes, and the world was still determined to turn his life upside down.

“What?” he managed to say. He gathered himself. “I, uh. I can’t. Be your sidekick, I mean. I was only in the Department of Support.” he ducked his head. “And besides that, I-um, I never graduated.” The shame Yuuri usually felt when considering his failures was only amplified by the fact that his idol, the one person he’d always looked up to, now knew how much a failure he was.

“Oh, so you went to a hero school! That’s great! Which one?”

Yuuri gaped. “I-uh. UA?” He didn’t even know what to think of this conversation anymore, and was struck with the sudden feeling of his life spinning out of control.

He felt dread well up in his stomach at the grin the Iron Prince - Victor - flashed at him. “You went to UA, too? That’s amazing! It’s such a good school, isn’t it?” He sighed, clearly reminiscing about his high school days. Victor clapped his hands, snapping himself out of his trip down memory lane. “It’s a really good thing that you went to UA! To be honest, I was prepared to train a complete civilian, but if you were a part of the Department of Support, you’ll have a pretty good background knowledge of hero politics and other things like that. Of course, I’ll-”

“Um, Victor?” Yuuri tried to interrupt him, but he was on a roll and showed no signs of stopping.

“-able to train you in the meantime, but I’ll still have to find a good gym that’ll let us work privately. Maybe after closing hours? And then when you’re ready for it, you’ll sign up to take the hero license exam. It’ll be great, Yuuri! Oh! And while I’m training you, you could be my hero support! We’ll be a dream team!”

For some reason, Yuuri did not feel as optimistic about this whole thing as Victor did, and those words triggered the feeling of sudden and imminent doom. Yuuri was not prepared for this. After all, everyone who had heard about the Iron Prince knew that the man didn’t do anything conventionally, but taking a civilian and training them to be your sidekick? That didn’t just cross the line of convention – it stomped all over it.

And really, didn’t he get a say in any of this?

 

 

The answer was apparently a very firm no.

Yuuri found himself being followed home by Victor, who was insistent that he meet Yuuri’s family. Yuuri decided to resign himself to letting Victor do whatever he wanted, because he knew what the man was like. If Victor had his heart set on something, then nothing was going to get in his way. And for some reason, Victor had his heart set on Yuuri being his sidekick.

As soon as Yuuri walked up to his home, Victor gasped. “You live at an inn? That’s great! That means that I rent a room here and we can get to know each other better when I’m not training you!”

Although his family generally didn’t pay much attention to top heroes, they had a vague idea of who Victor was thanks to Yuuri’s middle school (and a bit of high school) obsession with him.

But more than that, Victor was a paying customer. A paying customer with an abundance of money, and like any good business owners, they appreciated their customers. It didn’t hurt that Victor was extremely personable. He was funny and outgoing, and by the end of the hour, he had firmly won over Yuuri’s family.

Yuuri… didn’t really feel the same way his family did. What he did feel was overwhelmed, embarrassed, and emotionally exhausted. All he had wanted was to go home and work for a bit before eating dinner and finishing his day, but instead he was faced with Victor, who dashed his hopes of a soothing evening to pieces.

Yuuri needed to get out, get away. He beat a quick and silent retreat to the one place he knew he could have some peace.

It only took him a few minutes of walking before he saw Nishigori Hero Enhancements. It was distinctive, the large display windows giving an open view of their wares. The shop was tucked in between a café and a bakery, and Yuuko always joked that they planned for that to happen, given all the late nights the Nishigoris spent engineering, nevermind that both the café and bakery had opened years after the Nishigoris had started their business.

The second Yuuri stepped through the door and heard the familiar chime of the bell announcing his presence, it was as if a massive weight fell off of his shoulders. He knew that it was only temporary - he’d have to make his way home in a few hours - but it was a welcome relief nonetheless.

Yuuko stepped out from the backroom, carrying a tall stack of boxes that blocked her vision. At the bell, she called out from behind the boxes, her voice slightly muffled. “Sorry, we’re closing early today to take inventory. We’ll be back to regular hours tomorrow, though, so please come back then.” She turned and started putting the boxes down beside the doorway to the backroom.

Yuuri called back to her teasingly, “Well, I guess I’ll just have to find someone else to sell my designs to. After all, I was told that I could use the store’s backroom whenever I wanted, but if you’re going back on your word now…” He trailed off, grinning at her.

“Yuuri!” Yuuko beamed at him. “It’s so good to see you! You haven’t been here in awhile, I almost thought you already left us!” She moved forward and wrapped Yuuri in a tight hug. “Stay for bit! We’re just taking inventory and clearing out the back room.” She pulled a face. “You know how cluttered it gets in there, with mine, yours, and Takeshi’s projects. Not to mention the experimenting the girls have been doing recently.”

Yuuri chuckled, and followed Yuuko when she went back into the workroom. It was just as cluttered as Yuuko had said, with large areas of the massive workroom taken up by technology and equipment in various stages of completion. It gave the feeling of organized chaos, with a clear split in sections of the room denoting each engineer’s space. “Look who came to visit!” she announced, grabbing the attention of her husband, who had been soldering at his worktable.

Takeshi grinned at Yuuri and put his soldering iron down. “You haven’t been here for a few weeks, Yuuri - Yuuko and I had thought you abandoned us. Did something happen, or did you just have a new idea you wanted to tinker with?” he gestured broadly towards Yuuri’s workspace, labeled as such by the banner that the Nishigori triplets, Axel, Lutz, and Loop, had created with bright, scrawling crayon. Similar signs hung above Yuuko and Takeshi’s worktables.

Yuuri grimaced a little at the open offer to talk about what was bothering him, but he came to the Nishigoris’ shop to get away from his problem, not talk about it. Plus he felt that the moment he acknowledged the problem out loud, it would be real, and he didn’t know if he was ready to face that yet.

Although it seemed he didn’t get a choice in the matter as the front door’s bell chimed and Victor called out his name.

 

 

Yuuri was glad that Yuuko had put down the boxes she had been carrying earlier, certain that they would have been dropped unceremoniously the moment Yuuko recognized their guest. (Which didn’t take long - Yuuko had been almost as big a fan of the Iron Prince as Yuuri had been, and could recognize his voice easily.)

She looked in Victor’s direction before her head whipped around to look at Yuuri to confirm that yes, it really was THE Iron Prince that was in her shop. Yuuri just gave her a helpless shrug, dismayed at Victor’s presence in his safe haven, and, still wanting to avoid the reality of Victor being there, stayed in the backroom even as Yuuko practically flew out to greet the Iron Prince. He ignored the chatting that he could hear going on, still firmly in denial and hoping that if he didn’t acknowledge Victor’s presence, then Victor wouldn’t really be there in the Nishigoris’ shop.

Yuuri’s denial of reality didn’t last long, as a very excited Yuuko led an equally excited Victor into the workroom.

“Yuuri! You didn’t tell me that the Iron Prince wants you to do hero support work for him! You should show him what you have here!” And, so saying, pushed Victor in the direction of Yuuri’s worktable. Yuuri put his head in his hands, allowing himself a brief mourning of his delusions of a calm, peaceful life, and followed Victor to Yuuri’s space.

Victor was amazed at the sheer amount of inventions Yuuri had. The majority of them were small, small enough to easily fit in the palm of Victor’s hand, although there were larger ones as well. They were lined up in rows, carefully labeled and sorted. Some were commissions that had yet to be picked up, while others seemed to be experiments testing how one thing or another worked. It was amazing. Victor could tell immediately that this was something that Yuuri loved, and he would bet anything that, if he saw Yuuri working on his projects, he’d see Yuuri actually happy and in his element.

Yuuko cut into Victor’s thoughts, clearly proud of Yuuri. “Yuuri’s been working hard, and even after he left UA, he studied so that he could continue to support heroes. We’ve sold a lot of his work here, and we even have some customers that prefer to commission things from Yuuri rather than myself or Takeshi.”

Victor reached out and poked one of the completed inventions. “What do all of these do?” he asked curiously.

Yuuri was torn between excitement at explaining his work and discomfort at having to explain it to Victor, who turned his life upside down and infiltrated his safe haven. In the end, the excitement won out over the discomfort.

“Most of these have to deal with dealing with mental stress and anxiety in the field, which is my focus. These are all general use, but I’ve made a few specific ones according to individual hero’s powers and general mental states.” Yuuri paused to take a breath before launching back into his explanation. His eyes were shining and this was clearly something that he cared a lot about. “For example, you know Emil Nekola, the Cyber Hero? A while ago he was in Japan, helping clean up after that really bad earthquake, and he found his way to the shop. He saw some of my research and experimentations, and asked me if I could make him something that would help regulate his heartbeat when he uses his powers a lot because he relies on precision with his cybernetics, otherwise his leg compartment might not open or close exactly when he needs it to, or his –”

Yuuko cut him off when she saw the bewildered look on Victor’s face. “Yuuri, I think you lost him,” she giggled.

Victor coughed, shaking himself out of the uncomprehending daze he had found himself in, and looked around the workshop as Yuuri ducked his head, a small embarrassed blush high on his cheeks.

Victor noticed all the training equipment - both finished and unfinished - stationed throughout room. He got a gleam in his eyes that sent a chill down Yuuri’s spine when he noticed it.

Victor turned to Yuuko and Takeshi. “Would you mind letting Yuuri use the equipment you have back here while I train him to get a hero license? I’ll compensate you for the use of the equipment, of course.”

They gaped at him, eyes wide. “Hero license?”

Victor smiled innocently at them. “Yuuri’s going to be my hero support until he’s ready to work in the field. Then he’ll get his hero license and work with me!” He winked at Yuuri. “Right, Yuuri?”

Yuuko and Takeshi turned to Yuuri, who had his shoulders slumped and a resigned look on his face, as if saying ‘Do you see what madness I’m dealing with here?’ Then the three of them looked back to Victor, who was still smiling.

In the end, Yuuko and Takeshi agreed, if only because they knew that whatever Victor wanted with Yuuri would end up happening even if they had turned down Victor’s offer, and honestly, it was best to keep the situation close at hand, just in case any interference was necessary.

And hey, maybe Axel, Lutz, and Loop would get a kick out of having a world famous hero visiting their shop regularly.

 

 

Earlier than Yuuri ever wanted to be awake found him dragging himself into the Nishigori Hero Enhancements with Victor following behind him, annoyingly chipper for such an ungodly hour.

When Yuuri questioned Victor on why they had to be up so early, he got a chiding “I have to train you from scratch, Yuuri, which means that we have to use as much time as possible if you want to get a hero license before you’re old.”

Yuuri didn’t bother reminding Victor that he didn’t want a hero license - it was either unheard or unacknowledged, depending on Victor’s level of selective hearing.

A space had already been cleared for them to train, and the functioning machines that were geared toward workouts were lined up by the wall, ready for Yuuri to use them. The end result was that a corner of the workroom looked completely out of place, as if someone had cut out a corner from a small but well equipped gym and grafted it onto the workroom.

Victor clapped his hands. “Alright, Yuuri, get started with stretching - never forget to stretch before working out, otherwise you’re a lot more likely to tear something. If you need me to, I can suggest some effective stretches you can do.”

After Yuuri had spent enough time stretching, Victor had him running up and down stairs, doing sprints, lunges, crunches, and pushups, and Yuuri suffered every moment of it.

It’s not that Yuuri was horribly out of shape - he jogged a couple times every week - but it was never as far or as fast as Victor made him run, and the other things Victor had him do on top of the running were practically torture.

Victor kept Yuuri on the same routine for two weeks, switching out the crunches and pushups for weight training every other day, before there was any real change in the workout. It happened after Victor saw Yuuri stumble and nearly faceplant for the nth time while running stairs and decided that Yuuri needed balance training.

The following Sunday found the two of them at a local ice rink.

Yuuri still wasn’t quite sure why they were there, only that Victor told him that he needed better balance and, with a rather irritating smile, refused to say anything else. Victor had Yuuri sit down on one of the benches while he talked to one of the owners of the rink about borrowing skates. They normally wouldn’t be open Sundays, but the name (and money) of a top hero held sway wherever Victor went.

Once Victor finished chatting with the owner, he gathered skates in their shoe sizes and headed back towards Yuuri with a wide grin on his face.

He passed Yuuri one of the pairs of skates, who treated them much more carefully than Victor, wary of the actual blades on them. Victor, seeing how cautious Yuuri was about the skates, only laughed.

Yuuri unlaced first one, then the other and slipped his feet into them, but when it came to lacing them up, he was lost, and every time he thought he had it, the laces would slip out of place.

It took a couple more minutes before he was finally ready to go, and when he looked up, Victor was already waiting for him by the entrance to the rink. Yuuri rushed to stand up, to not keep Victor waiting any longer than he already had, but immediately thumped back down onto the bench. He had not anticipated the extent of the instability he would be working with, and realized that it was not going to be as easy as he had first thought.

Yuuri quietly cursed and made an effort to stand again. When he felt stable enough, he took a small step towards Victor and panicked a little as he wobbled. It took a little more effort and a lot more internal panicking before he made it to Victor’s side, but he managed it.

His feeling of accomplishment vanished the second he realized he would have to do it all again. On ice.

He could only stare in dismay at Victor, who was already gliding away, making it look easy and natural.

Yuuri steeled himself and set one foot on the ice, clinging desperately to the wall and regretting every decision he had ever made in life to get him to this point. He carefully shifted his weight to rest mostly on the foot he had on the ice and immediately slipped. Luckily his tight grasp on the wall meant that he didn’t wipe out, but it was a close call.

It took a couple of minutes before he was able to straighten up fully and another handful of minutes before he could shuffle along at a slow, but steady, pace.

At some point during Yuuri’s efforts to stay upright and move in a forward direction, Victor quit speeding around the rink to hover just behind Yuuri, encouraging him and occasionally guiding him.

Once Yuuri was confident enough to move away from the wall, Victor took him by the elbow and skated forward. At first it was way too fast for Yuuri, who felt like he had no control and thoroughly expected to end up on the ground at various points, but he eventually found himself actually skating forward and not just letting Victor drag him.

Victor let go of him, and Yuuri was shocked when he managed to stay up on his own. They skated around the rink for a bit longer (Victor noticeably more graceful than Yuuri), but Yuuri was pretty much done within the hour. Skating had taken a lot more out of him than he had first thought, and his shins and ankles hurt from all the work they were doing. He supposed that maybe Victor was right in taking him to a skating rink to better his balance - nothing was better for balancing than standing on top of thin knives when you’re on a slippery surface.

Yuuri flagged down Victor. “I don’t think I can continue. My feet hurt too much to stay on them for much longer.”

Victor, who showed no strain whatsoever, agreed to let Yuuri’s balance training end for the day, and the two of them left the rink.

As they were sitting on the benches and taking off their skates, Yuuri asked Victor, “How long have you been skating for?”

“Since I was a tiny kid. Being a hero is what I’m dedicated to, but if I hadn’t wanted to be a hero I probably would have ended up as a pro figure skater.” Victor laughed. “Maybe I would have even won a few gold medals!”

Yuuri nudged Victor teasingly. “Watch out, here comes Victor Nikiforov, the world’s most decorated skater!”

The two of them laced up their skates and turned them in, joking about Victor’s illustrious fictional figure skating career as they left.

 

 

It was still pretty early in the day, but Yuuri’s legs wouldn’t be able to take much more, so Victor called it a day on training. They were headed back to the Katsuki family’s inn and decided to grab lunch on the way back.

As they were considering options (Yuuri was in favor of just grabbing something from the convenience store, but Victor insisted that they have a proper lunch), Victor spotted an oden stand and gasped in delight. He immediately started dragging Yuuri towards it, heedless of Yuuri’s complaints. “Come on, Yuuri! I want a taste of authentic traditional Japan!”

Yuuri gave in easily and sat down next to Victor, rolling his eyes.

Once they were settled in with their food they started chatting. Pretty quickly, the topic changed to one that they both had been skirting around since Victor’s abrupt arrival in Yuuri’s life.

“Why do you want me to be your sidekick, Victor?”

Victor sighed heavily and paused, considering his answer. “Saving people isn’t easy. And not even just the physical aspect of it, but the emotional. For every hero, they know that there’s always going to be someone who can’t be saved, but it’s still hard to comprehend when they’re right in front of you.” He looked at Yuuri. “I lost faith in my abilities. Being a hero got a lot harder for me. But you, you saved that shopkeeper without even thinking about yourself! You just suddenly acted! And when I had to support you afterwards, I realized how much that took a toll on you, but you didn’t even hesitate to jump in.”

Victor grabbed Yuuri’s hand, almost upsetting their bowls of oden in the process. “From that moment, I knew that I wanted to team up with you.” He leaned back again. “You were so impressive, Yuuri!”

Yuuri blushed, embarrassed at the sudden praise. “I didn’t do anything special. The paramedics would have ended up saving him anyways.”

Victor frowned. “You don’t know that for sure, and from what I saw, it would have been a very close call.”

Yuuri scoffed disbelievingly.

“I’m serious! And I would know - I’ve been a hero for years now, I have the authority to say that you saved that man’s life.” Victor glared playfully at him in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere.

Yuuri laughed at him. “And I suppose, Mr. Hero, that you’re always right?”

Victor cracked a smile, but quickly schooled his face into a haughty expression. “That’s right. So you better listen to me!”

They both quickly broke out into giggles, and, heavy thoughts shelved for now, continued to banter playfully with the other as they finished their lunch and set back towards Yu-topia Katsuki.

 

 

When they got back to the inn, Victor turned to Yuuri. “You have a good basis of training for your body, and since you won’t be able to move so easily after skating, I thought we could take this time to train your Quirk.”

Yuuri cringed a little, knowing that his control of his Quirk was… lacking, to say the least. The training would be necessary, but he wasn’t looking forward to showing Victor how little he could do with his Quirk.

Victor saw Yuuri’s expression and sent a knowing smile his way. “It’ll be fine; we’ll start small and work our way up from there. For now, why don’t you tell me what you can do.”

Yuuri twisted his fingers, embarrassed. “Well, my Quirk is called Arrhythmia. When I activate it, I can hear people’s heartbeats, and if I synchronize my heartbeat with someone else’s, I can affect theirs by speeding mine up or slowing it down - it does the opposite to theirs. I can only affect one person at a time, though.”

Victor was actually pretty impressed by Yuuri’s Quirk, although he didn’t tell him that. It was a versatile Quirk that would be most effective in rescue efforts to find and prioritize who needs rescuing, but it could just as easily be used to help subdue villains by throwing them off and distracting them from using their Quirks to the fullest extent.

“Since it seems like you have a pretty good grasp on your Quirk, we’ll start by testing its limits. Can you focus on my heartbeat?” Victor said, absently putting a hand over his heart.

Yuuri nodded, a little apprehensive at Victor’s sudden plan, but tuned into Victor’s heartbeat anyways, listening to the pattern of the beats. No two hearts beat exactly the same way, and Yuuri memorized Victor’s heartbeat easily.

“I’m going to wander around the neighborhood and I want you to track my heartbeat for as long as you can, or if I go out of range of your Quirk. Text me when that happens, and then I’ll come back and we can talk about how to train it to get better range and duration.” Victor stood and grabbed his keys, leaving the inn.

Yuuri heard him leave and start making his way into the busier shopping district. It got a little fuzzy around that area, because there were so many people, but Yuuri tried to ignore all of them and focus only on Victor’s.

Victor meandered around the town for a while, but when no text from Yuuri was forthcoming, he decided to stretch the boundaries a little. He boarded a train heading into Musutafu, and he had almost reached the station when he got the text from Yuuri saying he had lost track. He whistled, impressed. That was pretty far for a hero to be able to track someone, much less someone who hadn’t even trained their Quirk.

Victor boarded another train going back to Hasetsu, and when he got back to the inn, Yuuri was giving him the stinkeye. “You were traveling way too fast for walking, Victor. Did you take the train or something.”

Victor laughed. “You got me! But Yuuri, your Quirk is amazing; you were able to track me for a long time before you lost it!”

Yuuri flushed, not used to anyone praising his Quirk.

Victor grinned, excited. “Next time I want to see if you can pick out individual heartbeats from a crowd!”

Yuuri slumped down, tired from even thinking about how much effort that would take, but he smiled a little. “I’m looking forward to it.”

 

 

Training continued as usual for another couple weeks, with the addition of time spent on the ice rink every Sunday and Quirk training following the skating. As time went on, Yuuri noticed that he was less and less tired at the end of the day, and that he had so much more control now - over both his body and his Quirk.

Victor noticed too. “Yuuri, now that you have the basic strength down and you’ve improved your Quirk, you should learn hand to hand, especially since your Quirk isn’t necessarily ideal for combat.”

Yuuri tilted his head to look at Victor, made slightly difficult by the plank he was in. “Are you going to teach me?”

Victor laughed. “No, I’m terrible at hand to hand - because of my Quirk, I’ve never really had to be good at it. But I called in Mila, who works at Yakov’s agency with me.”

Yuuri frowned in thought. “Mila? I don’t think I kn- wait. Are you talking about Eris?”

Victor grinned and nodded. “She’s one of the best there is at hand to hand! She even teaches self defense classes for women, so she’ll already be accustomed to teaching.”

Yuuri was awestruck for a moment before a shock of realization ran down his spine. He put his head in his hands. “Oh my god, I’m going to die.”

Victor, the bastard, just laughed at him.

 

 

Mila arrived three days later, cranky and tired from the jetlag. When she saw Victor and Yuuri waiting at the airport for her holding a giant sign with her name on it, she marched over to them and immediately kicked Victor in the side.

Luckily, Victor and Mila were good enough friends that he knew to prepare for that, and, given that Mila kicked him nowhere near as hard as she could, he came out of the interaction unscathed.

Yuuri, on the other hand, only began to dread being taught by Eris even more than he already had.

They all went back to Yu-topia, where Mila was going to stay for the next two weeks before she went back to Russia. (‘Some people, Victor, have to actually do hero work in Russia, Victor, and can’t stay in Japan for who knows how long on a whim, Victor.’)

 

 

The next morning, Mila crashed into Yuuri’s room extremely early, either recovered from the jetlag or not letting it get in the way of pounding Yuuri into the ground.

She practically dragged him and Victor to the Nishigori Family Enhancements, only pausing to ask (more like demand) directions.

They got to the shop even earlier than Yuuko and Takeshi, and Yuuri had to take out his rarely used key to the shop. He fumbled the keys, nervous with having Mila at his back. She might have been an amazing hero and human being, but no one could say that she wasn’t at least a little intimidating.

Once they got in, she set him to work immediately, showing him the proper way to punch and holding up a hand for him to aim at.

At first he couldn’t get it, and it was a little scary, because he kept thinking that the next thing Mila was going to punch was going to be him, but then he started really watching her. He saw the way her body twisted to put more force into the punch, how she took a step forward to steady herself and step into her target, how it wasn’t the flat part of her fist hitting the target, but the knuckles.

When she let him try again, he took a deep breath and a step forward, leaning in and letting his knuckles snap into her palm.

“Good.” Mila nodded, looking pleased. “Do it again.”

This continued throughout the rest of the day, with Mila showing Yuuri different combinations and places to punch before moving on to kicks. Yuuri picked those up much faster than punching, now that he knew to watch Mila’s entire body as she demonstrated it to him. Mila was impressed by how hard he was working and how much promise he showed, and during a break, wandered over to Victor. “He’s good. Where’d you find him?”

Victor just laughed at her. “If I told you, you’d want him for yourself, and I can’t let that happen!”

Mila called to Yuuri over her shoulder, still facing Victor. “Hey, Yuuri! I’m going to show you something really important, so pay close attention, okay?” Victor edged away from her a little nervously, but unwisely left himself within her reach.

Once she could feel Yuuri’s eyes on her and Victor, Mila sucker punched Victor in the solar plexus. He collapsed like a puppet whose strings had been cut, clutching his stomach and wheezing, the air knocked completely out of him.

Yuuri gave a startled bark of laughter, but immediately covered his mouth in apologetic horror. While it was kind of funny to see Victor go down like a sack of potatoes, he did just get punched in the gut and Yuuri felt bad for laughing at him.

Mila, on the other hand, decided then and there that Yuuri was her favorite, and couldn’t wait to lord it over Yuri, if only to see his chubby little babyface flare up in a jealous rage. After all, she had a hero name to live up to.

 

 

She got her chance the next day.

Mila had been showing Yuuri various ways to get out of holds (using Victor as a dummy, of course) when the door to the shop was flung violently open, loud enough that they could hear the chaotic jangling of the bell as it was flung from side to side from the backroom, even with the door closed. Yuuri, Mila, and Victor all paused for a minute before figuring that it was some obnoxious kid barging into the shop.

They… weren’t exactly wrong.

Not long after, Yuuko opened the door to the backroom with a bemused expression on her face. Standing behind her with a light scowl on his face was a small blond teenager.

“Yuri!” Victor beamed from where Mila had him in a headlock, with an expression not unlike an excitable puppy. “You came to see us!”

The teen - apparently Yuri, and wow, wasn’t that confusing - snarled and stepped into the room as Yuuko excused herself to go back to work. “Stop being creepy, you old man. It was either here with you and Mila or back at Yakov’s with Georgi. Not that hard of a decision to make.”

Mila laughed at him.

“Shut up, hag! You’re only marginally better, and that’s only because you don’t sob like a fucking crybaby at every little thing!”

Yuuri felt a shiver go down his spine. The kid was either very brave or extremely stupid to insult Mila like that; Mila was hands down the most terrifying person Yuuri had ever met, and if it came down to pissing off either her or a villain, Yuuri would choose the villain without a second thought.

Mila grinned and released Victor from the headlock. “This is perfect.” She turned to Yuuri and gestured towards the teenager. “Yuuri, this is Yuri Plisetsky, he’s enrolled in Russia’s top hero school and is currently doing an internship at the agency we work at - Yakov’s planning on hiring him once he graduates.”

Yuuri resigned himself to confusion that came with sharing a name, and offered a greeting to the other Yuri.

Mila’s grin stretched to wicked proportions. “Yuri, this is Yuuri Katsuki. He’s my favorite, sorry, your position has been usurped.” Yuri growled and Mila couldn’t resist poking at him even more. “Also he’s Victor’s new sidekick.”

“WHAT?”

And suddenly, in the place where Yuri had previously been standing, was a fluffy white kitten, hackles raised and spitting with anger.

Mila snorted and broke out into a deep belly laugh, holding her stomach in her mirth. Victor was chuckling, too, but Yuuri was too bewildered to even let out a giggle as his mind caught up to what was happening.

Yuuri realized that the other Yuri must have lost control of his Quirk, which seemed to be a shapeshifting Quirk of some kind.

It took another minute before Yuri was able to get his Quirk under control and change back into a human. His face was flushed with red, though Yuuri couldn’t tell if it from anger, embarrassment, or a mixture of the two.

Mila was still laughing and it didn’t seem like she was going to stop anytime soon, but Victor had enough grace to elbow her when it seemed like she would make a crack at how cute or fluffy or small Yuri was as a kitten, which only made her laugh harder.

Yuuri privately had to admit that it was pretty adorable how the other Yuri turned into a tiny kitten when he got angry, though he knew enough to not say anything.

Finally Mila’s laughter subsided enough to let her breathe, and she turned to Yuuri, wiping a stray tear from her eye. “Alright, Yuuri, let’s get back to work. I’m not letting you get out of training, even with the interruption of Yuri over there.” She hooked a thumb back at Yuri, then frowned. “That’s going to get confusing.”

Victor hummed thoughtfully. “We should give one of them a nickname, to help differentiate.” He snapped his fingers and pointed at Yuri. “I know! We can call you Yurio!”

Yuri exploded. “THERE IS NO WAY I’M BEING CALLED THAT! IF SOMEONE IS GOING TO GET A NEW NAME, GIVE IT TO THAT PIGGY OVER THERE!” He threw his finger in Yuuri’s direction, looking positively murderous.

Victor just smiled at him. “I can’t do that! I’m already going to have to give a new name to him for when he’s my sidekick, so this way, you’ll both have a name from me.”

Yuri’s glare intensified. “And what the hell is with that! Are you seriously telling me that you’re making this useless pig here your sidekick?!” Yuuri didn’t think it was possible, but the teenager seemed to become even angrier. “Over me?!”

“Wait.” Mila cut in, amused despite the amount of training time the situation was eating up. “Yuri, did Victor promise to make you his sidekick?”

Yuri snarled, which Mila correctly took as an affirmation to her question. Although she was amused at the situation, she wasn’t going to let it cut into any more of Yuuri’s training and dragged him off to restart the lesson on holds that Yuri had interrupted.

This left Yuri and Victor standing by the door of the backroom by themselves.

Yuri was glaring at Victor, who just laughed it off. “Sorry if I told you I’d make you my sidekick, Yurio. I don’t remember that at all!”

“Don’t call me that, you useless old man! Just leave that useless sack of shit here and come back to Russia. I don’t know why you and Mila are wasting your time on that pig, anyways,” he sneered.

Victor looked over at Yuuri, who was grappling with Mila in the far side of the backroom, then turned back to Yuri. “No can do, Yurio! Yuuri’s going to be my sidekick, and I can’t just make him move to Russia for me.”

“I said don’t call me that!” Yuri scowled at Victor. “Fine. I’ll just stay here until you and Mila come to your senses and go back to Russia.”

Victor ignored most of what Yuri said, only acknowledging the “I’ll stay here” and beamed. “You can stay at Yuuri’s family’s inn with me and Mila!”

It was said just loud enough for Yuuri and Mila to hear, and Yuuri tugged at his hair in dismay, wondering how exactly this became his life.

 

 

Despite his rude entrance into Yuuri’s life, Yuri actually fit in well. Yuuri’s parents liked him well enough, and Mari had developed some weird fascination with him. He got along with Yuuko and the Nishigori triplets the best though, and stopped by the shop to see them just as often as he stopped by to mock Yuuri during his training.

Eventually, Mila got tired of him constantly interrupting her, and forced him to join the hand to hand lessons (if only for the sole purpose of being able to throw him across the room with no repercussions).

Yuuri noticed that Yuri was more civil to him, and he wasn’t sure if that was from respect of training with Mila and being able to keep up with her, or the fact that they sometimes sparred, which meant that Yuri got to hit him as much as he wanted (not that Yuuri didn’t fight back - on the days they sparred, they both went home aching all over).

It was only when Mila had to go back to Russia and everyone expected Yuri to go back with her that he surprised them by saying that he was staying in Japan.

Mila didn’t really care what he did either way and Victor was delighted that Yuri wanted to stay, but Yuuri had to play the voice of reason and bring up the school in Russia that Yuri had already ditched two weeks of.

Yuri just scoffed. “It’s not like they can even teach me anything worthwhile. I barely had to pay any attention in class.” He flicked a scornful glance towards Yuuri for even daring to bring the subject up.

Victor, who had been watching the two talking, cut in. “What about attending a school here? There’s always UA!” He grinned. “It’s a good school, and it means that you can go to my alma mater!”

Yuri rolled his eyes. “Whatever, Victor. Fine, I’ll go.”

Yuuri was surprised that he gave in so easily, but decided not to question it - when it came to Yuri, it was usually better not to, unless you wanted to be subject to a long and angry tirade.

“Great! I’ll pull some strings to get you transferred. You should be able to start attending in a week!” Yuuri didn’t even know it was possible to transfer schools that quickly, but once Victor decided something, it seemed to happen almost immediately, as if by magic. Yuuri sometimes wondered if it was a second Quirk, or somehow a byproduct of his Quirk, although it had nothing to do with being able to control metal.

“Hey, wait, Victor! Don’t decide this so suddenly! I’ll have to get an apartment in Musutafu and get Grandpa to send me my things, and that’s going to take longer than a week!”

Hiroko, who had been walking by and had overheard the conversation, walked into the room smiling. “You can just continue to stay here, Yurio. It’s an easy commute! Yuuri never had any problems with it, and he only had to stay late at a friend’s apartment once or twice when he went to UA.”

“What?!” Yuri whipped around to look at Yuuri, along with Mila, who had been confirming her flight in the corner of the room. “You went to UA?!”

Yuuri shifted nervously. “I never graduated.”

Hiroko smiled at her son. “But you were at the top of your class your first and second years.” She turned towards Victor, Yuri, and Mila. “My Yuuri worked so hard. He came home every day talking about what he learned and how he could use it to help heroes save people, and I would have to pull him away from his schoolwork to eat!” She sighed. “You did so well, Yuuri. Such a good son.”

Hiroko then bid them goodnight, and left.

As soon as she left, Yuuri realized he would be interrogated, made a hasty excuse and scrambled after her, not wanting to answer the inevitable questions of why he had dropped out (he had done well enough thus far by keeping his reason from Victor, and he was going to make it last as long as possible, even if Mila and Yuri tended to be far more persistent than Victor ever would be).

Victor, Mila, and Yuri cut their losses for the evening and followed Yuuri’s lead, turning in for the night.

 

 

The next morning was a Monday, which meant that UA was open, and Victor could start the process of transferring Yuri, and he had managed to drag Yuuri along with them, using the excuse that “we’ll get lost without you to guide us!” which Yuuri promptly called bullshit on.

“You went there, too! You know the way just as well as I do – probably better, even! I bet you even go back there for all those alumni events they host, Victor!”

“But Yuuri! You know how bad my memory is! What if I’ve already forgotten the way? You would leave us to be lost in Musutafu? You’re so cruel, Yuuri!”

 

 

Yuri had already had his grandpa contact Yuri’s previous school the night before to let them know that he was transferring and request his transcript, and there was no doubt in any of their minds that Yuri would be accepted promptly, moreso as it was Victor vouching for him.

They were right. Victor had scarcely brought up transferring Yuri to UA before the principal whisked Yuri away to show off their facilities, leaving Yuuri and Victor alone in his office.

Yuuri twitched anxiously in his seat, steadfastly not looking at Victor, as if that would keep Victor from asking him about going to UA.

It didn’t work. Not that he really expected it to, but he could always hope, right?

There was another minute of silence before Victor broke it. “Why didn’t you graduate?”

Yuuri hunched down in his seat, but there was nowhere to hide and no way to avoid the question. “I - uh. I failed out of third year,” he mumbled quietly, partly because he was ashamed and partly because he didn’t want Victor to hear it at all.

Victor had to strain his ears to hear Yuuri, but he caught what he said. Victor frowned, his brow furrowing. “Hiroko said you were at the top of your class.” It didn’t add up, especially since Victor knew Yuuri personally - his work ethic was something to make even the most dedicated person jealous. The idea of Yuuri failing was ridiculous, and there had to be more to the story than what Yuuri was telling.

“What happened?”

Yuuri looked confusedly at Victor. “What do you mean?”

“Yuuri, you don’t go from top of your class to failing out for no reason. And I know you weren’t just being lazy. Something happened and it must have affected your grades, whatever it was.”

Yuuri balled his fists in his lap and thought of Vicchan. He wasn’t looking at Victor anymore. “Nothing in particular happened. I just wasn’t good enough, that’s all.”

“That’s bullshit.” Yuri’s voice cut in harshly from the doorway.

Yuuri twisted around, startled. “Wha-? Yurio? Where’s the principal?”

Yuri snorted. “Told the principal I had to go to the bathroom and then gave him the slip. I got tired of hearing about how great he thinks UA is.” He scowled. “But what you said was bullshit. You don’t go from being top of your class for two years to failing out without a reason.” He raised an eyebrow. “So what was it?”

Yuuri was taken aback. “I just couldn’t measure up to what was needed,” he said dumbly.

Yuri rolled his eyes. “As much as I hate to admit it, the old man isn’t completely incompetent, so anyone he chooses to be his sidekick isn’t a totally useless waste of space, either.” He had a disgusted expression on his face, as if he couldn’t believe what he just admitted to.

Victor beamed at Yuri. “I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve said, Yurio!”

“Ugh! Just answer the question! There’s no way that nothing happened!”

“It’s true, though! I couldn’t handle the pressure and my grades and schoolwork suffered!” The words burst out of Yuuri, as if he’d been holding them back for a long time. “If that’s what happened in a classroom, what do you think would happen in the field? As it is, I rarely take commissions for support technology because what if it fails? What if I’m the reason people get injured or killed?!” Yuuri choked the words past the lump in his throat, and tears welled up in the corners of his eyes. He was breathing heavily and quickly, and was quite obviously on his way to a bad anxiety attack. Victor, who was panicked by Yuuri’s panic, tried to calm him down by telling Yuuri how capable he was and how much he could do.

It, admittedly, didn’t really work.

Yuri rolled his eyes, walked over to Victor and Yuuri, and slapped Victor upside the head. “Can’t you see you’re freaking him out more, you shitty old man?” He pushed Victor aside and put both hands on Yuuri’s shoulders. “Calm down, you dumbass. Can you focus on Victor’s heartbeat?” Yuuri nodded, not able to speak. “Do that. Block everything else out.”

Yuuri closed his eyes and found Victor’s heartbeat. It was loud and reassuring, and after a few minutes, Yuuri was breathing regularly again, and was able to calm himself down.

Now that Yuuri was relatively okay, Victor was once more functional, and was about to reassure Yuuri when he was interrupted by the principal walking in.

“Oh, there you are, Mr. Plisetsky! I was looking for you.”

Yuri barely kept a look of disdain from taking over his face. “I got turned around and thought it would be better to head back to your office than get even more lost.” He lied. Blatantly, although the principal didn’t seem to pick up on it.

“Ah, I see! Good thinking. Well, unless you wish to finish the tour, all that’s left is the final paperwork, and then you’ll be all set to attend here!” The principal grinned widely, cheerful at the prospect of obtaining a new student, especially one being vouched for by the Iron Prince.

Yuri, on the other hand, was much less enthused.

“Great. I can’t wait.”

 

 

The next week passed quickly. When Yuuri wasn’t training with Victor and Yuri, he was helping Yuri fully move into the inn, organizing all the stuff Yuri’s grandpa sent over, but soon it was Yuri’s first day attending UA.

With Yuri gone during the day, both Victor and Yuuri didn’t really know what to do; they tried to train as they usually did, but it wasn’t quite the same without anyone shouting insults at them about how weak they are. They ended up leaving Nishigori Family Enhancements early and made their way back to Yu-topia. They sat at the table in the main room, and Yuuri rested his head on it. He was just about to doze off when Victor caught his hand.

“What you said in the principal’s office was wrong, you know, Yuuri.” Yuuri tensed and tried to pull his hand away, but Victor held on tightly. “I know that you think you can’t do well under stressful environments, but what about Mr. Sawada? You saved him, Yuuri.” Yuuri tried to speak, but Victor stopped him. “Nope! It’s my turn, now.” He grinned. “You did save him, Yuuri. That was you who made sure that he was okay, and would remain stable until the paramedics got there. And that moment, when you saved Mr. Sawada, was really important to me. It’s hard, being a hero. You learn that you can’t save everyone, and that sometimes in order to stop the villains, you need to let some people go. I knew there was a good chance Mr. Sawada wouldn't make it. I was prepared for that. What I wasn't prepared for was you. I had no idea that you would swoop in and save him like it was nothing, but you did and it was amazing. You saved him, Yuuri, when I couldn’t.” Victor leaned in and kissed Yuuri’s cheek. “You’re already a hero, Yuuri.”

Yuuri blushed, but then smiled. “Please don’t tell me I’m your hero, Victor. That’s way too cliche, even for you.”

Victor put his free hand against his chest, and schooled an offended look onto his face. “Do you really think that of me, Yuuri? Is that all I am to you? Just a cliched hero?!” He flung himself onto the ground, overcome with fake tears. Yuuri, who was laughing helplessly, collapsed on the ground next to Victor. Yuuri extracted his hand from Victor’s, making Victor look over at him just in time for Yuuri to slam a floor pillow in Victor’s face.

Victor looked stunned for a moment before he grinned mischievously and picked up his own pillow, using it to whack Yuuri’s head.

In short order, the two were chasing each other around the room, armed with pillows, hitting the other when they got the chance, slipping and tumbling like they were kids again.

 

 

Yuri came home a couple hours later to the two of them taking an impromptu nap on floor after their pillow fight and scowled at them, muttering about how gross and dumb they are even as he got a blanket for them.

(And if he threw it on their faces instead of doing the “nice” thing and tucking them in, well, he wasn’t their mother, and they could just deal with it.)

 

 

Yuri, being a typical teenager, did not like doing schoolwork. The only exception was when he and Yuuri were studying hero politics together. Victor tried to help every now and then, but he was ultimately useless, because he had never once in his life paid heed to the politics around hero work, aside from the most basic rules that even non heroes knew.

Yuri had only started teaching Yuuri about the politics of being a hero when he realized that not only was Victor not fit to even teach a hamster, much less Yuuri, but that he himself had only the most vague idea of what they were, and knowing the politics of the hero world was pretty important if you were going to be a hero.

So Yuri and Yuuri’s study sessions were born (with Victor often joining at first but quickly becoming bored and leaving or napping).

As a result of studying with a hard worker like Yuuri, Yuri’s grades went up by a wide margin, placing him in the top five of his class.

 

 

Soon enough, Victor ran out of things to teach Yuuri and decided it was time to apply for a license. At this point, Yuuri could likely hold his own against villains, but Victor wanted to be absolutely sure that Yuuri had as little chance as possible to get hurt. He wouldn’t be able to forgive himself if it was his fault that Yuuri wasn’t ready for hero work.

“Yuuri, I think that you’re ready to take the hero license exam.”

Yuuri’s stomach dropped.

It must have shown on his face because Victor grabbed his hand and held it. “Yuuri. I know you’re ready for this. You’ve improved so much in training, and honestly, you were meant to be a hero. This exam? It only shows other people what I already know. You can do it, Yuuri.”

Under such an earnest expression, Yuuri folded like a house of house of cards and agreed to sign up for the next hero licensing exam being held in the area.

 

 

Finally the day of the exam came. Yuuri’s stomach was twisting itself into knots and he felt like he was going to throw up, but he wouldn’t back out. Victor thought that he could do it, and Yuuri wanted to show him that his faith wasn’t misplaced, that he did have what it takes to be a hero.

He was in the testing facility and the exam proctors had just finished explaining what the exam was going to consist of. It was split into three stages, with observation, adaptation, and rescue being the main grading focus of each stage respectively.

The test was going to be grueling, lasting a total of eight hours, with only twenty minute breaks between each stage. Each participant was being scored on how well they did on each stage of the exam, and the cumulation of scores at the end would determine which participants would walk away with their licenses. There were a little over three hundred participants, though only a quarter were expected to pass according to the average from previous tests.

Yuuri took a deep breath and steeled himself as the proctor called over the loudspeaker to begin the first stage of the exam.

 

 

The first part of the exam was based on observation, and had two distinctive goals. The first was to find and disable “bombs” that had been planted at various locations throughout the large facility being used for the test. The second part would come into play once all the “bombs” had been found, when individuals would infiltrate the heroes to plant more “bombs.” The exam participants would then have to find and report the scenario’s “villains,” a difficult task given that very few of the participants knew each other.

It was made even more difficult by the arena, which was big, even for the number of participants.

Yuuri set off, thankful that his Quirk would help him through this portion of the exam fairly easily. He would just have to pay close attention and remember all the work he put into strengthening his Quirk. It wasn’t going to be easy, but it would be doable.

He started heading for the tallest buildings - those would cause the most damage if they fell, and if someone was planting bombs with the intent to kill, that was his best bet on finding them. As he continued toward his destination, he absently kept tabs on all the participants’ heartbeats, keeping each distinctive pattern in mind.

Once he reached the cluster where the majority of the tall buildings were, he picked one at random and went inside, headed for the lowest level. He would work his way up the first few floors of each building, but he bet on finding the “bombs” on the lowest levels. Bombs on the lower levels would destabilize the building’s foundation, and the entire building would collapse, taking a lot of buildings and people with it.

He was right, and he discovered three “bombs” in the basement and another two on the first floor. Yuuri pressed the small, blinking disk on the top of each one, disabling them, and moved onto the next building.

He repeated the process throughout the other buildings, occasionally running into other exam participants as he did so. For the most part, they helped each other out, reporting buildings that had already been searched to each other, spreading the information to clear the area of “bombs” as efficiently as possible.

It was nearly an hour and a half in when Yuuri estimated that they’d nearly cleared the area of all the “bombs.” He started paying more attention to people’s heartbeats, sure that once all the “bombs” had been confirmed as deactivated, the proctor would send the “villains” in to plant more.

He strained his Quirk, and listened. It was loud, cacophonous, and it hurt his head to focus in on so many heartbeats. Each was pounding in its own rhythm, out of time with every other heartbeat. Some were louder than others; these were the worst. It seemed like they were thundering right in his ear, and they made his vision swim a little, but he had to do it. If he could just focus on what heartbeats were there, the second new ones joined the others, he would know.

It wasn’t foolproof, and he knew that. But even if he could track only a few of them down, he could stop them. Even if some slipped past him, it would still be better than not knowing where any of them were, and he was sure the other exam participants would be on high alert for them as well. He just had to do the best he could and hope it was enough.

Yuuri closed his eyes and focused on the heartbeats that surrounded him. He shut everything else out to concentrate better; this was a task that would take all of his attention.

He almost didn’t catch them, but there were three unfamiliar heartbeat patterns that he could pick out by the periphery of the exam boundaries.

Yuuri cut out the rest of the heartbeats from his focus, and started moving towards the closest one. On his way he bumped into another exam participant. Literally. He was so concentrated on the three heartbeats and on not losing track of them that he ran right into her.

He tumbled onto the ground, dazed and thinking he just ran into a wall. When he realized that he had actually run into another person, he gasped. “I’m really sorry! I was so focused on getting to one of the villains that I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going!” He apologized again and started running again. The woman jogged after him, catching up easily.

“Wait! You know where one of the villains is?”

He nodded. “There are at least three that I know of, but the one I’m heading to is the closest.”

She looked at him a little suspiciously, wondering how he could have known that. It was clear to Yuuri that she thought he could be one of the villains and was trying to trick her, so he rushed to explain his Quirk to her. He told her that he could hear everyone’s heartbeats and that he’d been listening for any that suddenly appeared once all the “bombs” had been disarmed.

She brightened, and slapped Yuuri on the back, making him stumble a little. just from that, Yuuri could tell that she had a strength enhancing Quirk.

The woman grinned at Yuuri. “Alright! Lead me to the villains, and I’ll subdue them for you!” She paused, as if she had something to say but wasn’t entirely sure if she should. “No offense, but you’re a little scrawny.”

Yuuri just shrugged and agreed, not offended in the least, because while he did have some muscle, it wasn’t prominent. And he had seen very few people with more muscle than the woman running alongside him; he figured that most people seemed scrawny to her.

He led her to where the “villain” was and pointed them out.

She cracked her knuckles and subdued him quickly and efficiently before turning again to Yuuri. “You said that you knew where two others were, right? Do you still?”

Yuuri nodded. “One of them has been subdued by someone else already, but the other hasn’t been caught yet.”

“Lead the way!”

 

 

The first stage of the exam ended shortly after the woman had taken out the other “villain” Yuuri led her to, and the two of them headed to the rest area. They were allowed twenty minutes breaks between each stage of the exam to rehydrate and take a brief rest before the next task.

On the way there, the woman stopped short and turned her body to face Yuuri. She held out her hand for a handshake even as she introduced herself. “Sorry that I didn’t introduce myself before! I’m Kanako Odagaki!”

Yuuri fumbled awkwardly for a moment before grasping her hand. “Yuuri Katsuki, it’s nice to meet you. Thank you for the help, by the way,” he added.

Kanako grinned. “No problem! Besides, you were the one that did the real work earlier! I just ended up being the muscle.” She laughed at the slight play off her Quirk.

Yuuri smiled at her, glad that he met such a friendly person; knowing someone like Kanako made him feel far more comfortable than he otherwise would have.

The two of them chatted idly until they were called for the second part of the exam, which was the portion of the exam that tested their adaptability. It would focus on environmental factors and obstructions to the senses, such as loud noises or bright lights.

It turned out that the second part of the exam was constructed as something similar to an obstacle course, with each obstacle requiring different skillsets. They were sorted into groups of five, and Yuuri thanked his lucky stars that he was in the same group as Kanako - partially because she was a familiar face and partially because Yuuri knew his Quirk would essentially be useless and it was comforting to have someone with a strength enhancement Quirk around.

He’d still be in a group with three others he didn’t know, but Kanako was the friendly kind of person that bridged gaps between strangers easily and seemed to set most people at ease, so there wasn’t likely to be any conflict within the group.

They faced each other for a moment, somewhat awkwardly, before Kanako cheerfully introduced herself, breaking the tension. “I’m Kanako Odagaki, and my Quirk is basically that I’m super strong!” She grinned at the others and flexed her muscles, which came across as both earnest and comical.

Her amiable demeanor set a lighthearted tone for the other introductions, and lifted the mood, erasing the awkwardness that had been present.

The next to do introductions was Hikaru Kanazawa, with a retrieval Quirk. He seemed a little nervous with everyone’s attention on him as he spoke, and Yuuri felt a little bad for him, knowing from experience how difficult speaking in front of strangers could be. Hikaru nevertheless managed to introduce himself with no problems.

After Hikaru was Akiko Takagi, a bubbly young woman who had a Quirk that enhanced the strength and durability of her legs, and following her was Masaaki Ando, whose Quirk allowed him to control water.

Yuuri was last to introduce himself, and was a little intimidated by how useful and well suited to hero work everyone’s Quirks were. Well, everyone’s but his own. He wanted to get the attention off of him as soon as possible, so he quickly told them that his Quirk allowed him to hear and affect heartbeats.

 

 

The first obstacle they had to get through was a crowded business district a mile long. It didn’t sound like much when it was introduced as the first obstacle, but “crowd” was a bit of an understatement. The entire area was packed full of civilians, to the point that there was barely an inch between them all. It would be nearly impossible to make their way through the crowd.

Most of their group noticed this, but Akiko and Masaaki started forward towards the crowd before Kanako stopped them.

“We won’t be able to get through the crowd just by trying to force our way in - we need to think of a way to get past them.”

They spent a few minutes brainstorming ways to get through the crowd before Hikaru suggested what ended up being their final plan. Once they agreed to the plan and made a few tweaks to it, they were off. Akiko grabbed Hikaru and used her Quirk to jump up on top of the nearest building. When they were safely on the roof, Hikaru then used his Quirk to bring each member of their team up onto the roof with him and Akiko. From there, they just had to run across the rooftops. Luckily, each of the buildings were similar in height and fairly close together, so they managed to run the mile across the rooftops fairly easily and far more quickly than if they had tried to push their way past the crowd. They got to the end, and everyone briefly congratulated Hikaru for his quick thinking before steeling themselves for the next task.

 

 

The second obstacle was based on extreme weather conditions that they might have to face during emergency rescues. In this case, it focused on high winds, a torrential downpour, and flooding - a simulated typhoon.

When Masaaki saw what the second obstacle was, he just grinned and flexed his fingers at the rest of the group, letting them know that the water portion of this obstacle taken care of. Yuuri wondered just how strong his Quirk had to be if he was confident that he could shield an entire group through a not inconsiderable distance.

While they could count on Masaaki to shield them from the water, they still had to worry about the high winds. Kanako mentioned that she thought that, given her Quirk, she could help brace some of the others against the high winds. Her enhanced strength would make it easier to dig her heels in - literally, if needed. After hearing Kanako’s reasoning, Akiko mentioned that she could probably do the same.

They organized themselves so that Kanako was in the front, taking the brunt of the wind shoving them back. Masaaki followed immediately behind her, so he would have the least resistance working against him as he used his Quirk, parting the flooded water around their group for easier movement and keeping a lot of the rain off them so their eyes stayed clear. Behind Masaaki was Yuuri, followed by Hikaru, with Akiko taking up the rear to catch Hikaru and Yuuri and keep them moving if they got caught and thrown by the wind.

They got through the area without incident (unless “incident” included the members who didn’t have enhanced strength sometimes being plastered against the stronger members to keep themselves up and moving. At some points where the wind increased its speed, Kanako and Akiko had to practically drag the other three members of the team to get through together).

Constantly using his Quirk at such an extent wiped Masaaki out though, and it was unlikely that he’d be able to use it seriously for a while yet.

 

 

The third obstacle had them traveling through the unstable rubble of a wrecked commercial district. It looked like the aftermath of a large battle and a nightmare to be in. There were massive craters in the ground that had broken up the ground so badly that there was no even ground, and some buildings were balanced precariously against each other, and even the slightest shifting of weight could bring them crashing down on top of the small group.

Kanako was the only one of them that could use their Quirk effectively in this kind of environment, but they were all grateful that she was on their team. At various points when they were traversing the wreckage, Kanako was able to save them by holding extremely unstable buildings still enough for them all to get through. Though the most memorable time was when a sizable chunk of concrete detached itself from an upper floor of a building they were passing and almost flattened Yuuri. Kanako leaped toward him, bumping him out of the way and catching the plummeting slab of concrete. With her bare hands. (Once Kanako got her hero license, Yuuri was going to have to inform Victor that he’d have tough competition for Yuuri’s favorite hero.)

The only one who didn’t really need her help was Akiko, who was fast enough on her feet that she was able to avoid being crushed without Kanako having to worry about her.

 

 

As soon as they stumbled out of the rubble - all in one piece, thankfully - they were faced with a blazing inferno. The fourth obstacle was clearly a replica of a lower class district, where fires spread quickly and easily due to the little space between the buildings.

“I can-” Masaaki started, before being interrupted by four people telling him in no uncertain terms that he will not use his Quirk and that they can figure something else out. They briefly consider just flat out running through it, but it was about a mile long, and they couldn’t afford to get injured before the test was over. Luckily, this was the last section of the obstacle course, but they still had to find a way through it.

“Well, if we could find some cloth, Masaaki could wet it so we’re not inhaling smoke,” Yuuri said, looking apologetically at Masaaki. “Is that - is that doable?”

Masaaki grinned, obviously still worn out. “You got it.”

Akiko frowned for a minute, then said “If we could get some kind of makeshift sled for Masaaki, Yuuri, and Hikaru, then Kanako could pull it while I push it, and we could shorten our time in the fire.”

“That might work.” Kanako nodded in agreement. “If we could find something flat and durable to act as the sled’s body, and then some rope or something to pull it with, we could get out of here relatively quickly.”

They started searching for things that could help construct a sled. Yuuri ducked into one of the houses that had curtains that were left untouched by the fire, yanked them down and ran outside, coughing a little from the smoke. He handed them off to Kanako, explaining that they could be ripped and twisted to make a rope, and the excess can be used as masks to filter out the smoke.

Meanwhile, Hikaru was looking for anything that could be used as a main body for the sled, planning on using his Quirk to retrieve it so he wouldn’t get burned, but he couldn’t find anything laying around that would work. When Yuuri came back with the curtains, Hikaru asked him if there were any tables in the house he’d just come from.

Yuuri realized what Hikaru was getting at and nodded. “There’s a dining room table in there that isn’t burned much at all. It should work pretty well for a sled.”

Hikaru tried to use his Quirk to call the table to him, but he didn’t have enough control to maneuver it through the door, so he instead called it to the front of the house, just inside the doorway. He and Yuuri then ran into the house together and grabbed the table. They had to struggle a little to get back out the door as soon as they could, but eventually they made it out without damaging either themselves or the table. When they made it outside, Kanako had already ripped some of the curtains into small enough pieces they could tie around their nose and mouth, and Masaaki was dampening the last of them.

Once they all had the cloths tied around their faces, they flipped the table upside down and twisted the remaining curtain into a rope, tying it to the two table legs at the front of their makeshift sled. Yuuri, Hikaru, and Masaaki all climbed onto the overturned table as Kanako grabbed the rope and Akiko positioned herself at the back of the sled, ready to push.

Kanako and Akiko ensured the other was ready before taking off.

They ran over everything in the way - including cracked cement and smoldering debris, which made for a jarring ride, but it was fast. A lot faster than the pace they would have to go at if they were all running.

There were a few close calls, where Masaaki almost tumbled out of the sled or the sled itself nearly caught on fire, but they eventually slid out of the fires, smudged with soot and sweating from the heat.

Once they were a safe enough distance past the obstacle, they all collapsed on the ground together and laid there for a bit. They had completed the obstacle course portion of the exam.

Yuuri started giggling. “That was so intense.”

The others started laughing too. “I thought we were actually in the middle of a real neighborhood caught on fire!”

“And the part with the typhoon? Oh my god, I half thought we were going to die!”

Laughing and supporting each other, they all stumbled to their feet and made their way to the rest area together to rehydrate and cool down before the final part of the exam. At this point, five hours had passed from the start of the exam, and they were all exhausted. The break was welcome, and they spent it relaxing before their last task.

 

 

At last, the final portion of the exam was announced. Quiet groans were heard from all the participants, who mourned their short break, although everyone moved forward eagerly, ready to complete the test.

The last stage of the exam was rescue. Collapsed buildings and shattered cement covered the entire area, like a larger, more intense version of the battleground from the third part of the obstacle course. There was one difference though. There were civilians peppered throughout the exam area, acting as though they were wounded. The participants’ job was to find each one, and make sure they were either stable enough to move under their own power to the medical tent set up near the edge of the exam site, or, if they weren’t, the exam participants would carefully “stabilize” them and bring them there themselves.

The second Yuuri stepped out among the ruined buildings, he activated his Quirk. He was once again bombarded by the sound of several heartbeats, though far fewer than before, as the area he focused on was much smaller than the one in the first task.

There were a lot of heartbeats near him, scattered through and under the rubble. He followed the closest one to an almost completely closed off pit that used to be a building’s basement.

Ducking his head into the small opening, he was met by darkness. He briefly listened for rustling to confirm that the civilian was conscious and moving. “Are you hurt?” he called out.

A faint voice answered him. “I think my ankle’s broken.”

Yuuri frowned. If their ankle was broken, they wouldn’t be able to climb out of the pit themselves, even with Yuuri’s help. Yuuri would have to go in and carry them out, an impossible task with how small the opening to the pit was. He’d have to widen the opening somehow, but the rubble covering the pit was large and Yuuri knew he wasn’t strong enough to move it without risking the entire thing collapsing down on top of the civilian. He would need help on this one.

He ducked his head back inside the opening. “I’m going to get someone that can help widen the opening so we can get you out of there. It’ll be alright. I’ll be right back, I promise.”

He heard the noise of affirmation from the civilian, and hurried away. It was risky, leaving them trapped down there, but he couldn’t rescue them on his own. Luckily, he knew someone that had the perfect Quirk to help him.

He extended the range on his Quirk a little and listened for Kanako’s loud and strong heartbeat. Fortunately, she wasn’t too far away, so he ran in her direction. He reached her just as she finished digging a young man out between two boulders. He was able to walk on his own, and she sent him in the direction of the medical tent.

Yuuri grabbed her hand and started hastily guiding her towards the civilian he needed to get out of the basement, explaining the situation along the way.

It had only been a minute or two since he had left the person, and he called out to them, telling them that he had returned with someone with a strength Quirk to help get them out. He asked Kanako if she could shift aside only what was necessary to widen the gap enough for him to slip in. She did so, and he entered the caved in basement, where he found the civilian, clutching their ankle. From inside, he was able to comfort them and as he directed Kanako to pieces of rubble she could take away without everything coming down on top of Yuuri and the person he and Kanako were rescuing. Soon, the hole was wide enough that Yuuri was able to carefully hoist them onto his back and climb out.

Kanako suggested that she take the man to the medical tent while Yuuri looked for more people to help rescue. There was an unspoken agreement between the two that they would work together throughout the rest of the test. Between the two of them, helping the people who were trapped would be a lot easier than if either of them went alone.

They moved quickly and efficiently through each section, and with Yuuri’s Quirk, they were able to find the people who needed help as quickly as they could.

Kanako was in awe of Yuuri. He was practically glowing with confidence, eager and determined to help everyone he could. This was where he belonged, Kanako could tell. Yuuri was made to be a hero.

They had covered a lot of ground and saved a lot of people when they heard the explosion. It was just ahead of them, in an area they hadn’t searched through yet, and Kanako and Yuuri took off in a dead run, hoping that other exam participants had already cleared that section of civilians.

When they got to the location of the explosion, they were confronted by a pro hero who, it seems, had been hired by the exam creators to act as a villain.

Yuuri was a little surprised and amused to see the pro hero they had playing the villain was the Cyber Hero, Emil Nekola. As in, the least villainous person that ever existed.

And unfortunately, Yuuri was apparently helping him be a better villain, because the equipment Emil commissioned from Yuuri was working perfectly.

Yuuri cursed and stayed off to the side, out of the fight, knowing that even with the training from Mila, he wasn’t as experienced in fighting as many of the others, and would likely get in the way. Instead, he watched Kanako leap into the fray with a few others who had been alerted by the explosion.

He quickly checked the area for the heartbeats of any civilians that might still be waiting for rescue. To his dismay, there were still three. They immediately become his top priority, and he had to get them as far away from the fight as quickly as he could without drawing any attention from Emil.

Luckily, one of them only said they had an arm injury, and was able to walk by herself. Yuuri sent her away from the fight, and in the direction of the medical tent, telling her he would catch up and help guide her once he got the other two out.

The other two, a teenaged girl and her younger brother, needed more help. The girl’s leg was stuck under a slab of concrete, and her younger brother refused to leave her side.

Yuuri was able to pry up the concrete without too much trouble, and carefully lifted her into his arms, crouching so her brother could climb on his back. Once they were secured, and he knew that neither of them would fall, he set off for the medical tent as quickly as he dared with the girl’s leg injured. He caught up to the young woman with the arm injury and brought them all to the medical tent. He made sure they were in good hands before running back towards the fight. Yuuri wasn’t sure what he could do in the fight, but he couldn’t just leave his new friend there, even if there were others to help her. Besides, he reasoned, he knew Emil’s enhancements inside and out, and could point out their flaws if needed.

And there was one other thing he could do.

He grinned and hurried back to the fight. Unsurprisingly, Emil was easily holding back those who were attacking him, and it became clear that Yuuri would need to help them; Emil was a top hero, after all.

He activated his Quirk and zeroed in on Emil’s heartbeat, familiar from the time he’s spent with Emil over the last few years. He synched their heartbeats and started to gradually slow his own down - so slow that Emil would hopefully attribute his quickening heartbeat to adrenaline rather than any tampering by someone’s Quirk. Yuuri was working against his own inventions, which made it difficult, but his Quirk was much stronger than the technology he had created, and he was able to make sure Emil’s heartbeat was going fast enough that it would affect his cybernetics.

He called Emil’s name, surprising him. He hadn’t known that Yuuri was training to become a hero, much less that he was going to be at the exam, and Yuuri took advantage of that. Normally, Emil’s momentary shock wouldn’t be enough to leave an opening, but with his equipment not functioning the way it should and his heartrate affecting his cybernetics, his response time was noticeably slower than it usually was.

Slow enough to leave an opening that Kanako took advantage of. She knocked him back, and thanks to Yuuri, the participants that were fighting Emil were able to keep him at bay until the time ran out and the exam was declared over, and the participants were prompted to return to the rest area to wait for their exams scores to be published.

Everyone started walking wearily away from the testing area, stumbling occasionally on rocks and webbed sidewalks.

When Yuuri got to the rest area he slumped on the floor and leaned against the wall and Kanako dropped down next to him. The rest area was quiet; no one had enough energy to talk above a whisper, and most people were close to sleeping as the adrenaline wore off and the exhaustion set in.

Yuuri was no different, and was staring absently at the floor, only awake through sheer force of will. Which was, of course, when Emil decided to find and talk with him.

 

There were a whispers from those excited to see the hero, and a few sighs of jealousy (as if Emil wasn’t going to make sure that he talked to everyone there).

Emil grinned at Yuuri. “I had no idea that you were trying to become a hero, Yuuri! You surprised me!”

Yuuri huffed out in laughter. “I didn’t set out to be a hero on my own. The Iron Prince took an interest in me after I helped save someone, and he practically dragged me into it.”

“That sounds a lot like Victor!” Emil laughed. “But do you not want to be a hero? If you don’t, you don’t have to. Don’t let anyone pressure you, Yuuri.” He looked concernedly at Yuuri, upset at the thought of someone forcing him to do something he didn’t want to.

Yuuri waved his concern off. “Ah, I actually think that this is something that I can do, and I want to.” Yuuri smiled. “You know, I actually wanted to be a hero when I was little, but in the end I gave it up because I didn’t think that my Quirk was good enough to be able to help people.”

“I think you’ll be a great hero, Yuuri!” Emil beamed at him.

Yuuri gave Emil a small, apprehensive smile. “I haven’t passed the exam yet, Emil.”

Emil shook his head. “There is no doubt in my mind that you passed the exam with flying colors, Yuuri,” he said with conviction.

Yuuri wasn’t so sure, but let it go, knowing that Emil would continue to insist that Yuuri passed if he bothered to argue. They chatted for a few minutes before Emil excused himself to talk to the others who had taken the test and Yuuri slumped down, his exhaustion not made any better by talking with Emil, no matter how nice he was.

It ended up being almost an hour before the results were announced (which, Yuuri was admittedly okay with, because it meant that he got an hour of time to gather enough energy to actually move again). The names of those who passed were listed on a board in alphabetical order, and Yuuri, with his heart in his throat, skimmed his eyes past names until he got to the ‘K’s. And there, underneath Kanno Michiko and Kashiwada Ryuu, was Katsuki Yuuri.

Yuuri couldn’t believe his eyes. He was getting a hero license. He was going to be a hero!

The dream he had long since given up on was coming true, and Yuuri was so shocked by it. He knew intellectually that he had been working towards being a hero, but it hadn’t quite hit him until he had seen his name up there on the board, among the names of everyone else who passed.

Yuuri walked outside in a daze. He was so out of it that he almost walked past Victor and Yuri, who had been waiting outside the examination site for him. The only thing that stopped him from walking straight past them was Victor reaching out and snagging Yuuri’s sleeve.

Victor saw the shocked expression on Yuuri’s face, and assumed that he failed the exam. He looked upset for Yuuri and pulled him into a hug. “I’m sorry, Yuuri. There’s always next year’s exam. I’ll do better in training you, and you’ll definitely get your license then.”

“No.” said Yuuri. “I made it. I passed.” He snapped out of his disbelief. He pulled out of Victor’s hug and grabbed his hands, an excited grin spreading across his face. “Oh my god, Victor, I passed! I’m getting my license!”

Yuri scowled and kicked Yuuri. “What the hell was with that sulking thing you were just doing? You made us actually care about your pathetic feelings.”

Yuuri laughed and detached himself from Victor, grabbing for Yuri instead. “I’m sorry, Yurio. I was so surprised, though!” He successfully wrapped Yuri in a hug, a little surprised at being allowed to do so.

“Ugh, let go of me you damn pig! Go back to hugging the old man – he actually likes you!” Yuri growled and lightly shoved Yuuri away from him. Yuuri let him, happy that he was allowed even that much.

Victor threw an arm over each of their shoulders and drew them close. “This calls for a celebration!”

 

 

In the end, Yuuri was too exhausted to do anything but sleep for the next several hours, and Victor’s celebration plans were put on an indefinite hold.

 

 

It was two weeks after Yuuri got his license that he was actually able to use it. Technically, he still wasn’t affiliated with any hero agencies, but Victor was working something out with Yakov to have Yuuri work with him, so when Victor got the call of a villain in the main shopping district, they both went.

It was a minor villain, and Victor and Yuuri took care of her rather easily. Really, Yuuri felt that Victor could have taken her down easily on his own, and that his presence only sped up the process, but Victor wanted him to be noticed.

Yuuri regretted letting Victor make decisions sometimes.

 

 

The very next day, a picture of Victor and Yuuri fighting together surfaced on just about every news channel with speculation of the Iron Prince’s new sidekick. No one really knew who Yuuri was yet, but he knew that it would only be a matter of time until someone figured it out.

 

 

It took a lot longer before anyone connected UA hero support dropout Yuuri Katsuki to Victor’s new sidekick, and the only reason the connection got made in the first place was because Emil was bad at lying, and even worse at avoiding questions, so when someone asked him what he thought about the Iron Prince’s new sidekick, he spoke at length about Yuuri, his old hero support who was now Victor’s sidekick.

So Yuuri’s life was turned upside down, many heroes who had been previously scorned by Victor suddenly demanding why an unprepared upstart had gotten one of the most coveted positions by aspiring heroes.

It was actually the question on everyone’s mind. Why did the number one hero in the world choose a no name sidekick who wasn’t even on the hero track to begin with?

Whenever those who knew Yuuri were asked that in interviews (including Yuuri himself), they all had different answers. Victor’s tended to go somewhere along the lines of “Isn’t it obvious? Yuuri is super amazing!”

Yuri’s answer wasn’t often recorded because of the number of expletives included, Mila would threaten whoever spoke disparagingly about Yuuri, and Yuuri himself would just shrug his shoulders and tell the interviewer that he’d like to know the answer too.

In the end, no one was really satisfied with Yuuri remaining at Victor’s side. Yuuri would sometimes run into issues with other heroes who were jealous of him, or who looked down on him, but, as someone who never really liked unnecessary confrontation, Yuuri ignored it as much as possible.

It got to be too much sometimes, and his old anxieties about never being good enough would resurface, but Victor, Yuri, and Mila did what they could to soothe them (well, Victor did. Yuri and Mila mostly just told him to stop being a dumbass).

A couple years later, Yuuri became much greater than just Victor’s sidekick. He became a top hero under his own power, one that many people looked up to. He was an inspiration to so many people, because he didn’t have a Quirk that was suited for being a hero, and he had to work so hard for it, but he made it.

And not one person could say that Yuuri Katsuki wasn’t a hero.

 

 


End file.
